Something Constant
by Doverstar
Summary: Another Pre-Act Your Age teen PnF oneshot. Phineas is confused by Isabella's recent behavior toward him and needs someone to vent to. Two someones. Isa's distance is new, and Phineas is beginning to wonder just how stable the things he cares about in life really are. If Isabella mightn't actually be his friend forever...what assurance does he have of anything ELSE being forever?
**(Author's Note: This was just for fun, because I watched Act Your Age again and I can't get over the fact that Phineas and Isabella sort of drifted during high school and I use that too much in my P &F drabbles but whatever.
**  
 **Cody Bannister is my very first PnF OC, and the only one I like. He's just in here for a little bit. I'll rewrite his original debut fic and post it if anyone's interested, but all you need to know is he's sarcastic and he's a childhood friend of Phineas' who sometimes visits the boys and stays in Candace's old room when he does. -Doverstar)**

* * *

It had been three months into the new school year, and Isabella had barely spoken to him in between classes. She wouldn't sit behind him on the bus anymore. She didn't come over for dinner. There was an Isabella-shaped indent in the grass about three feet to the left of their tree in the backyard where she should have been standing every day, but she wasn't.

The result was a very confused and distraught Phineas Flynn, whose heart was beginning to feel like it had been strapped to a trapeze, but one buckle had come loose, and everything went topsy-turvy, then the _other_ buckle came loose and there was falling, and then the heart landed in a big vat of peanut butter, and then some dog with mange fished it out and dropped it in the big dumpster behind Beverly's Lunch.

At first it wasn't _that_ bad. It was gradual. Everything was gradual. Her silence in the school hallways, her absence in the seat behind his on the bus, at the dinner table, in the backyard, everywhere. They went one by one; he remembered. He calculated the days in between each disappearance, and none of them were consistent. Phineas didn't love consistency. Consistency led to stagnation, which led to boredom. He loved variety. He was most sure of things when they weren't solid.

He could do without _this_ variety.

"Have you got inventor's block?" Ferb asked when his brother entered the bedroom. He must've noticed the redhead wasn't fully erect.

Phineas didn't even take off his backpack. "I tried calling Isabella twice already," he sighed. "You think she's sick?"

Ferb shrugged.

"If she's sick I guess that's okay," Phineas went on, rubbing the back of his very oddly-angled neck. "but she's gonna miss the 60's bash we're throwing outside." He glanced over at the other teen, suddenly remembering to ask, "You've got your watch set for party time, right?"

Ferb held up his wrist, not taking his eyes off his book as he lounged on his bed. "Midnight. Check."

There was a moment of silence as Phineas checked his own watch. It was set. The bash would be great. Weather was good for it.

"Rrrghh!" He free-fell backward onto his own bed. "What did I do, Ferb?"

Ferb turned to look at him at last.

"I mean, how bad is it if she won't even pick up her phone? It's me, right? It's definitely me?"

Ferb blinked, real slow. "What makes you think you've got anything to do with it?"

Phineas felt his face heat up. Yeah, that sounded a little self-centered. One person's rash high school decisions and sudden unprovoked isolation couldn't solely be based upon one other person. That would be weird.

Or maybe it _was_ provoked.

"I dunno," Phineas huffed, staring at the ceiling. "I thought we were, you know, best buds. But she doesn't come over anymore." He smiled a little, glancing out the window. "It's not like it's a long walk."

"D'you think perhaps you should ask her?" Ferb raised an eyebrow. "Instead of assuming?"

Phineas lifted himself up on his elbows. Hadn't anybody been listening to his frustrated babbling? "Ferb, she—she's not answering her phone."

"It's not like it's a long walk." Ferb slung an arm over his chest, tucking the other behind his mass of green hair. "George Bernard Shaw once said, if I recall, that the largest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

Phineas' eyes lit up, the way they usually did when he got a great idea. "Maybe I _should_ talk about it!"

Ferb nodded.

"Thanks, bro."

Ferb gave him a thumbs-up.

Phineas made his way to the pink door just down the hall from his own. Not that _his_ door was pink. His door had yellow tape warning people who weren't familiar with that room that its inhabitants were geniuses. And that they were probably working. On something big.

Anyway.

He didn't bother knocking; it was cracked so he knew it was safe to come inside. "Hey," Phineas greeted, lifting a hand, "you ready for the big 60's bash tonight?"

Cody Bannister was lying on his back on Candace's old bed, playing with his phone with his feet hanging off one side of the mattress and his head hanging off the side facing the door. His big amber eyes struck Phineas' and he shrugged.

"Sounds like a gas, man." Cody went back to his phone. "Boss. Choice. Copacetic."

Phineas craned his neck to see the screen rightside-up. "Are you playing Galaga?"

"Are you watching me play Galaga? Upside-down?" Cody squinted, a few _pew pew pew_ noises shot from the tinny speaker.

"You're losing."

"Ain't nobody got time for your commentary."

"You know you don't have to stay in here every time you visit," Phineas went on, glancing around. "Candace's room is cool and all, but—"

"Concentrating."

"—it'd be more fun if you bunked with me and Ferb."

"There's nothing fun about air mattresses with holes in them," Cody informed him, rolling over.

"We can fix that," Phineas promised. Child's play. "All the stuff we've done over the years—we can fix anything." He glanced at the window, where he could just see the top of the Garcia-Shapiro residence in the dying sunlight. "Well, almost anything."

Cody set his phone down, raising one eyebrow even higher than Ferb had. "Do I hear the sound of cartoon angst and foreshadowing?"

Phineas' gaze snapped back to him. "Do you huh?"

Cody rolled his eyes and sat up. "What's your damage, dude?"

Phineas slipped his hands into his pockets. "I think Isabella's mad at me."

Cody blinked at him. Once. "I think turtle broccoli might have stolen my sweatshirt."

"Uh...what?" Phin's eyebrows pinched together.

"Oh sorry." Cody flipped his phone into the air and caught it, repeating the action several times, watching the highly breakable device go up and down as he did. "I thought we were saying random stupid things."

"But it's not random, C-Man, she really is!" He was almost whining. That was no good. Phineas leaned against the wall. "Why else would she be avoiding me?" The back of his triangular head hit the wall with a soft _bump_. "Do I smell bad all of a sudden? Is she allergic to the color yellow?" He looked down at his shirt. "Did I forget Pinky's birthday again? What is it, what?"

"Okay, look." Bannister slid his phone into his pocket and reached for his black jacket, which was carelessly flung onto Candace's old nightstand lamp. "If by some whack, mysterious force of nature you're being serious and Izzie's actually giving you grief— _you—_ it's prob'ly something a little more important than forgetting her rat-dog's birthday."

"He's a Chihuahua."

"Gesundheit."

"What do you mean, something more important?" Phineas ruffled his own red palm-tree 'do.

Cody raked his hand through his hair, standing. "Like, _ten years of agony_ moreimportant, boy genius."

Phineas stared at him. He had so many questions. "Why would she spend ten years in agony?"

Cody looked at the ceiling, exasperated with his best friend's ignorance. "Ducky Momo, take me now." Somebody get this kid some flash cards. When would the inventor get it? And it wasn't anybody's tell but Isabella's. Which sucked, because trying to talk to Phineas about this without any big revelation was like trying to get Irving to _not_ sleep with his UPAFDS every night.

"How long you think she's been avoiding you?"

"Since the beginning of the school year." Phineas sighed from somewhere deep down. Probably his gut. Maybe not that far down. How far down could you sigh from? "And we just started high school. You think it's peer pressure? Like, all those movies giving us subliminal pre-set anxieties about Jr. High. I never thought _Isabella_ would give in to—"

"Stop talking." Phineas closed his mouth as Cody held up a hand. "Why don't you go ask _her_?"

Phineas' eyebrows raised.

Cody shifted his weight to his other foot, waiting.

Phineas lifted a finger.

Cody nodded to him, like, _go ahead_.

"How can I ask her if you told me to stop talking?"

"Dude!" Cody threw his head back.

"Okay, okay," Phineas grinned and headed for the door. "You and Ferb and talking it out. It's like I'm the only one not thinking clearly or something." He chuckled.

"Ferb told you to talk too?"

"Yeah, he said to communicate."

Bannister pulled his black jacket on, a look of disbelief in his amber eyes. "And you came in here."

"Yeah."

"To communicate with _me_."

"Yeah, communication." Phineas hand one hand on the door, halfway out already. "Oh hey—you think _he_ meant Isabella too?"

Cody's eyes crossed. "Leave my pink room immediately."

"Wow, you two are really in sync today, huh?" Phineas went on, as if his friend hadn't spoken. "I guess next time—"

Cody walked to the door.

"—I should pay more attention. I mean, if you're both saying the same thing—"

Cody took hold of the doorknob and started slowly closing the door.

Phineas was still babbling, pointy nose absently fighting to remain in the room while he finished his thought. "—it probably _is_ me who's missing something. Does that happen a lot?"

 _Aaaand_ the door was closed. Peace. Cody breathed a scoff of relief, because he don't do big heavy sighs, shook his head, and started back toward the bed and Galaga.

Then he heard something past the shut door, like a little shuffle. Or maybe the sound of somebody blinking.

He didn't turn around. "Phineas."

Phineas' voice came, surprised, from the hall. "Oh, you mean go right _now_ , go right _now_ and communicate! Okay—thanks, Cody!"

Cody flopped down on the bed in his original, topsy-turvy position, thumbs twitching to resume his game. Black jacket was on. Time to get serious, little pixelated aliens.

A soft knock came, and Cody's ship was blasted. The door opened, and his eyes struck the intruder beneath lowered rage eyebrows.

"Do you people know anything about introverts in this house?"

Ferb shrugged.

"What's up, S _eñor Mute_?" Cody demanded, tone proving he wasn't _that_ frustrated.

"Has he gone at last?" Ferb demanded, leaning on the doorway with his arms crossed.

"Haven't had a single weird-shaped head in here to mess up my winning streak in the past five seconds, so—" He sat up, squinting at Ferb over his shoulder now. "Oh, wait. Never mind." He held up his phone and wiggled it with a big, fake grin, melting it into a scowl and dropping the phone onto the unmade bed.

Ferb arched a brow. "Weird-shaped?"

"Look in a mirror," Cody smirked. "He's gone. I hope." His eyes rolled up to the ceiling again. "I pray."

"You know, we can't force these things," Ferb informed him.

"Yeah, well, if he doesn't get a clue soon I'm gonna throw him out a window. Every other word outta the guy's mouth is _Isabella_ , _Isabella_. You'd think he'd wise up."

"So close," agreed Ferb, amused, "and yet so far."

They went to the window. Phineas was slowly making his way across the street, hands in his pockets. He really did looked vexed. And almost nervous.

As if he felt someone watching him, the redheaded inventor turned, catching the other two boys' eyes from the sidewalk.

Cody offered a two-finger salute. Ferb raised a hand.

Phineas beamed at them and waved energetically. He could handle _some_ consistency. He didn't mind the consistency of summer, that concrete feeling that it would _always_ be there for 104 glorious days, waiting to welcome him. The assurance that stripes would _always_ be his thing. The unmitigated fact that spaghetti was _always_ best fresh out of the pot instead of the microwave the next day.

And he was totally cool with having those two taller figures checking up on him from Candace's window, with knowing that no matter what other friends came in and out of his life, he'd _always_ have them.


End file.
